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Blank City

Documentary | USA 2010 | 94' | OV

Rumour has it that it was all the fault of a single fence who had to get rid of a truckload of Super8 cameras quickly and cheaply on New York’s Lower East side. The result was an urban film movement that helped directors like Jim Jarmusch or Susan Seidelman, but also multi-talented artists like Vincent Gallo, Debbie Harry, James Nares, Steve Buscemi or John Lurie to break out. But after the crème of this crop, called the »No Wave« generation, had been embraced by the public, the rest lost themselves in infighting and radical experiments.
Using the rhythmic punk music by Patty Smith or the Ramones, whose performances at »CBGB’s« had strongly influenced this movement, Celine Danhier shows a collection of tragicomic anecdotes of living and loving arrangements in giant, rat-infested lofts; of politics and Kung Fu and feminism and break dance and drag queens and Reagan and aids; of Burroughs and Ginsberg and Yoko Ono; of the unavoidable selling out of some, and of those who were left behind. BLANK CITY is the document of a lost city, a spontaneous art culture and a generation vibrant with lust for life.